Monday, 31 January 2011

Amanuensis Monday - A strong Dorset accent

This is the will of my 8x great grandfather, Richard Keats or Cates, (1648-1698), who lived at East Lulworth, about three miles from the famous Lulworth Cove, in Dorset. The spellings are idiosyncratic, not to say bizarre, and seem to be the direct transliteration of a strong Dorset accent.

July ye 18th 1697

In ye name of God amen I richard Caetes of East lullworth Being veary sheke & weacke of bodey but of good & parfecket Memory doth commit my bodey to ye earth & my sole into ye handes of God all Mitey & my bodey to be Bueried in ye Churchyard of East Lullworth

Imprimis I gave to my daftar anne ye wiufe of willam peney ye some of on shilling It I gave to my sone willam caetes all ye colle bages It I gave to my sone Richard Cates ye some of on shilling It I gave to my daftar Rachell ye some of one shilling It I gave to my sone tomas cates ye some of one shilling It I gave to my daftar sushana ye some of one shilling Itam I gave to my sone Edward cates ye some of one shilling

Imprimis I gave unto my sone James Ceates all my goodes & Cheles & Leses & stocke & goodes with thien & without that I dey prosest of home I make my sole Executar of this mey Laste will & testment & all bondes & billes & deptes

I desiear my good frinde home I make & desiear to be my trostee of this my Laste will & teste ... Dunning to stand frinde to my pooear Chidren home I shall Leave in ye handes of my Execter

The marcke of Richard (R) Ceates

sined & delivered in ye presentes of us

Edward Dunning

the Marcke of Marey Whamey

21o May 1698oJuirat fuit ExtorQod NobisCar Sloper

(Dorset Record Office: MIC/R/188 DA 1698 23)

If you are not familiar with the Dorset accent, this recitation of Thomas Hardy's "At Lulworth Cove a Century Back" will give you a good idea of how it sounds. The poem is about John Keats, who last set foot on English soil at Lulworth Cove in September 1820. He was on board a ship bound for Italy which was becalmed in the Channel and Keats and his friend, Joseph Severn, took the opportunity to go ashore. Keats told Severn it was "a part [of England] he already knew". This has led to speculation that the origins of the poet's family, which he deliberately obscured, may have been in that area of Dorset, where the Keats surname is common. How fascinating to think that John Keats might be my distant cousin.

Update: 10 January 2012

Unfortunately, You Tube have removed the video of Thomas Hardy's poem because the person who posted it on You Tube did not have the right to do so. You may therefore want to listen to this recording, made by the British Drama League during the 1930s, to get an idea of how the Dorset accent sounded.

3 comments:

I love it! It's so rare to read well-written accents, and yet whoever wrote that will did a great job of it! I'm not from England but I sure enjoy the speech variations! Thanks for transcribing and sharing this wonderful document.

Great to read the will. Richard Ceates is my distant ancestor too. Was great to read his will online. Very interesting. How are you related to Richard Ceates? My line is through Richards son William who had a son Shadrach.

Richard Cates was my 8x great grandfather. I am descended from him twice, through Mary and Margaret Cates, two daughters of Richard's son, James. You can see charts of my two relationships to Richard Cates here: http://goo.gl/R89Ji (I'm the Living person at the bottom of each tree).

There is a lot of information about our mutual Cates ancestors on my website, starting with the marriage of William Keate and Alice Veale at East Lulworth in 1641: http://goo.gl/vzPjN. As you will see, my site is far from complete but I am gradually uploading information and sources into the database.

If you contact me using the form on my website, we can exchange further information by email and find out what number cousins we are!

Incidentally, the timing of your comment was nothing short of amazing. I was actually looking at this very blogpost at the same time as you were writing your comment, having just been asked by the East Lulworth OPC for permission to use my transcript of Richard's will on his website. (Of course, I said yes.) I hit Send on my reply to him and notification of your comment immediately popped into my Inbox!